Pages

Monday, June 18, 2012

Our favorite recipe of the weekend was a "Thai-ish" grilled pork tenderloin with a fantastic peanut sauce.

But first, a big shout out to our friends on the Uncultured Swine BBQ team for taking second in ribs at this past weekend's Big BBQ Bash in Blount County.

I met them at last year's Bloomin' Barbecue, and Bluegrass in Sevierville. Great bunch of people and they use Big Green Eggs in competition (from Wayne Blalock Home Center). They also use a Lang 84 using Kingsford with a blend of cherry, hickory and apple. I'm guessing that they won 2nd by submitting baby backs like they did last year at BB&B.

Anyway, back to my Thai pork tenderloin. I like grilling pork tenderloins for several reasons.

Twice the fun - they usually come in two packs, so you can cook two different recipes at the same time if you like.

Perfect for 4 - one tenderloin feeds a family of 4. That is until the two kids hit teenage years. Then TWO tenderloins feed 4 with a little leftover.

Quick cooking - 20 minutes on the grill is about all they need, perfect for weeknight dinners.

Our "live at home son" had a friend over so we had 5 for dinner and two pork tenderloins disappeared. In fact, I was only cooking one tenderloin that night. But I had extra sauce and they were dying for more so I quickly cooked the other one too. It was gone in a flash. Oh well, at least I had some curry and rice leftover for lunch today!

Grilled Thai Pork Tenderloin with Peanut Sauce

source: www.nibblemethis.com

Ingredients

2 pork tenderloins, silver skin trimmed

For the marinade

1/3 cup peanut oil

1/4 cup cilantro

1 Tbsp lime juice

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp sriracha sauce

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1/2 tsp palm sugar (sub brown sugar if you like)

1/4 tsp ground ginger

For the peanut sauce

1/3 cup teriyaki sauce*

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp red pepper flake*

1/4 tsp ground ginger

Instructions

Marinate - Put the marinade ingredients in a processor and blend for 30 seconds. Place the tenderloins in a Glad zip top bag, pour the marinade over them, seal and marinated for 4-6 hours in the fridge*.

Make Ahead - Place the peanut sauce ingredients into a processor and blend for 30 seconds until well blended. Refrigerate until needed. When ready to use (if made ahead), heat for 3-5 minutes in a pan over medium low heat while the pork rests (see below).

Grill it - Preheat a charcoal grill to 375f for direct heat. Remove tenderloins from marinade. Grill, rotating about every 5 minutes, until they reach an internal temperature of 137-140f in the MIDDLE*. This will take about 20 minutes but go by temp. Remove and let rest for 5 minutes.

Slice the pork tenderloins into medallions about 1/4" thick. Drizzle with the peanut sauce and serve with more on the side for dipping.

Notes

Teriyaki sauce - Our family are big fans of Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce for teriyaki. I learned about this stuff from Paul at No Excuses BBQ and am glad I did.

Heat level - as written, this was a mild heat level peanut sauce. If you want medium or hot, increase.

Marinating time - I haven't tried it, but with the slight amount of acid, you could probably let it sit in the marinade all day while you're at work and grill it when you get home.

Pork Tenderloins are tapered from one in to the other. Tip 1: Keep the thicker end towards your grill's hot spots. Tip 2: Measure the internal temp in the middle of the tenderloin.

This is a real winner Chris...you may find this one posted on my blog this weekend (of course not with the same quality photography). I've got two nice pork tenderloin in the freezer calling out my name.